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Google Plus plus Meebo equals Google minus $100m

Gobbled up toolbar biz does the 'super jazzed' hands

Google is set to acquire website widget maker Meebo for a reported price tag of $100m (£64.8m) in a clear move to drum up interest in Google+, the ad giant's flagging social network.

Meebo confirmed the planned takeover in a blog post on Sunday. The cloud-based upstart makes a button bar that, among other things, appears on websites and links content on pages to what people are going on about in Twitter and Facebook.

"We are happy to announce that Meebo has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Google," the Meebo team wrote.

"For more than seven years we’ve been helping publishers find deeper relationships with their users and to make their sites more social and engaging. Together with Google, we’re super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike."

Google said it was constantly on the look out for products to inject into Google+, which new users to Gmail and YouTube are now automatically signed up to - even if they don't subsequently use the network. They can, after the fact, opt out of Google+.

It said: "With the Meebo team’s expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google Plus team." ®